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I'm heading downstairs, four flights, on my way to a staff meeting. No danger of people looking at my camera strangely; nobody else takes the stairs. Including me! But as I walk, I make a new resolution to use the stairs more. Not only going down, but up. Yes, I will raise my metabolism! Strengthen my muscles! Become lean and mean in no time! The first few minutes of a new exercise regimen are always the most thrilling.
Sounds: Nothing but the loyal echoes, happy to keep me company on the trek.
At 10:10 I was on my way to Eliz's new school to pick her up, after receiving a call from the school nurse. My barfing daughter. I was trying really hard not to feel sorry for myself in this task, because my daughter is ill, after all, and I must help her. It seems our stressful week is only going to continue along the lines it has formed itself thus far. What might help is to think of each event as an individual item with its own history, rather than sweeping it together into "General Conspiracy of Stressful Circumstances Compounding Themselves." We will hang out in the garage office together and play cards. Yesterday I taught her to play gin rummy, and this will occupy us for the lunch hour, I'm sure. Maybe I can even get some work done.
Another shot of the diagnostic still-life that is my desk. A cloth duck basket filled with fake money has appeared, as well as a bottle of Methocarbamol, the batteries from a pencil sharpener, and the splints I wear to combat carpal tunnel syndrome. I am sitting with feet propped up on a stool, which takes some of the pain from my back, and I'm wondering if I'll be able to work very well this morning. The kids are at school, at last, after the longest summer in history. I can hear my neighbor's carpets being professionally vacuumed with a loud, annoying whine. The cats are restlessly scraping away at something in the kitchen which I can't clean off the floor, since I can't bend over without falling down in another back spasm. Ten:ten finds me rather pathetic. Maybe I'll just go back to bed.
Hardly anything passes by this face without question, but somehow this picture came and went without a word. Sunday morning in the park, sunny but cool under the trees. By 10:20 we would be racing bark chip boats down the creek.
A good morning.
We're having a difficult morning in kidland at 10:10. At the moment, children are stomping around making declarations. I can hear Eliz's high scream in the next room, which probably means that Manny just told her she had to listen to him respectfully. Sophie is also in a Mood, which for her manifests itself with "Why CAN'T I bring this book to church? Why NOT! And I want this HULA SKIRT. And I want this ROCK." Eliz is saying, "You ALWAYS embarrass me. Everything you SAY embarrasses me." We're going to church, which I find a hopeful thing. We can put off this horridness for a little while, since they don't do much of it in public. We will have a reprieve.
At 10:10, I was looking at my hedge. You can't see, but it has this white powdery stuff on its leaves. Last year, the other hedge had the same. The guy at the nursery immediately diagnosed the specimen I brought in a plastic bag. He called it a one-word name, a very practical and apt name I can't remember now. "Sludge", or "mange" or something. Hmm. Maybe it was "blancmange", a condition that happens when the hedges are exposed to too many Victorian novels. Now that I think of it, the nursery attendant did advise me that to cure this plant disease, one merely has to sprinkle prime examples of the modern novel at the base of each plant - Wolff, Sartre, etc. And water liberally.
At 10:10 we had just finished breakfast, and were reviewing a packet of weekly work sent home by Bunny's 3rd grade teacher. Addition, subtraction, cursive, grammar, geography, logic puzzles, reading ... we take seriously our joint role as caregivers, while feeling a rush of deja-vu from our own 3rd grade years. In this picture, BB officially signs up to be a classroom volunteer. What a great way to distract him from his enforced unemployment this fall. In the background, we hear neighbors' voices from the open window, as well as Daisy barking regulations to the delinquent squirrels.
As requested by the inimitable Keither, I have taken a picture of myself when my very, very stern look happened to coincide with the 10:10 marker of the day. This is an act of bravery, to post this for you, my friends, because as you can see it is not a flattering picture by any stretch of the imagination. It is, however, stern. The words I had said, as I turned around in my office chair, went something like this:
"Sophie, STOP it. Eliz, you can't just HIT her. Is that the way to communicate what you want? Both of you STOP. I'm going to turn off your computer if you can't figure this stuff out."
The noise stopped, so I assume the behavior stopped too. Either that or they figured out a way to beat each other up without my knowledge. Somehow this possibility appeals to me, suggesting, as it does, some kind of secret relationship between my daughters in which they are allied with each other in their conspiracy against me.
I brought Sophie to school and was immediately recruited by Teacher Anarchy to work. The preschool year starts on Monday, and accordingly I spent a frustrated hour in this room (Thompson Hall, apparently) of the Methodist Church that also houses the school, putting shelf paper on the cubbies. At 10:10, I looked up from my work, took a piece of doughnut, and noticed the Sunday School attendance sheets on the wall, which had a picture of a pastoral Jesus in gown with shepard's crook, sitting with a bunch of white kids on his rock with him, and cursive writing at the top saying this:
"Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me" -- Matthew
Which immediately threw me into a line of thinking. Doesn't the quote actually mean that when children die, you're supposed to give them up to God? That's what the word "suffering" means in this context, right? Am I right? Or am I a delusional Unitarian? So why, oh why, I ask why why why, would you use it for a list of children who attend Sunday School? Are they aware of this fact, that the reference is to DEAD CHILDREN?
Or maybe I'm totally wrong. It's been known to happen from time to time.
I don't get out and walk as much as I should. Why not, I wonder, when the river is right across that abandoned railroad bridge. It's only about five blocks to get here! Plus the outdoors makes for better ten:ten entries. I only have so many desk toys.
At this moment in the morning, I am thinking of the musical (or is it an opera?) "Evita". In particular, a song called "Good Night and Thank You." It depicts young Eva Duarte basically sleeping her way out of obscurity, until she becomes a radio star, an actress, and finally First Lady of Argentina. Until now, I never questioned the depiction of her in the musical as calculating, ruthless, and power-hungry. What if she wasn't, though? What if she was simply seeking her natural social strata? Or, heaven forbid, what if she was looking for love? Her way would seem dispicable by American standards; we like to think we left the caste system behind when we sailed away in the Mayflower. So if a poor girl wants to be a glamourous actress, there's nothing but a face-wash and a pair of Gucci pumps stopping her. But it's not that way everywhere. Hells, it's not really that way here! So why come down on Eva so hard?
Sounds: crunching rock (my feet, and the steps of other bureaucrats on break); the occasional motorboat engine; the ubiquitous freeway.
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